Existing methods of conducting certain transactions employ ‘customer relationship management’ (CRM), where the customer is accorded different benefits or privileges, or given particular offers and marketing messages, depending on information known about the customer by the provider of the desired good or service. Such CRM practices involve apparatuses that are networked to a central server or processing system that is maintained by the entity providing the good, service or some associated benefit (such as “frequent flyer points” or “frequent flyer miles”) and information about each customer.
However, existing CRM practices have several drawbacks. In particular, they require interconnection and communication in real-time to the central server and/or they generally are cumbersome to implement; as a result they are typically expensive to operate. In addition, entities participating in collaborative CRM face many hurdles in sharing what they know about a customer, owing to both technological constraints and consumer privacy concerns.